


For me, for you

by quinnovative



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: 4x10, Angst, Danvers Sisters, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kara Danvers Needs a Hug, Kara Danvers Tells Lena Luthor About Being Supergirl, Lena Luthor Finds Out, Lena Luthor Finds Out Kara Danvers is Supergirl, can be read as supercorp or as best friends, chapter three is pretty much all danvers sisters, more characters will make appearances but that's for later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2019-10-14 22:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17516798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quinnovative/pseuds/quinnovative
Summary: Re-write/extension of the Alex and Kara ending scene of 4x10. I can't in good conscience call this a fix-it fic because it still made me sad.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one sitting and haven't proof-read it yet bc it's late and I have early class tomorrow morning, I'll edit for real tomorrow but lmk if you come across any mistakes!! I just wanted to get it out quick for anyone else who's still drowning in emotions.
> 
> My heart was in pieces after Sunday's episode, so I had to cope with a fic, hope you guys feel it too ;)
> 
> (P.S. big thanks to my friend, Anna, for the prompt idea!)

“I can’t.”

Kara’s voice, soft as breath, lands square against Alex’s stomach like a fist. The feeling sinks deep into her gut as Kara slips past and leaves the door swinging behind her. A gust upends a swirl of dust in its wake.

Alex’s eyes flicker between J’onn and the fleeting form of her sister, before Alex pushes herself off the table. “I’ll be back,” she promises and J’onn gives her a nod, his own brows creasing. The pain from each sister radiates, battering at his psyche in waves. He watches Alex leave the room, then turns away, toward books and files that commemorate the past. That remind of history’s formative nature.

The hallway is ice cold and vacant when Alex enters, but the sound of hyperventilating turns her head toward the right, leading her feet to a corridor of office doors and Kara, with her eyes closed and her face crumpling and tears streaming down her cheeks.

Alex drops beside her. Never mind the hard of the ground or the chill of tile against her jeans, she slides into place until her hip is pressed against Kara’s, and without a word, Kara turns into Alex’s arms, grappling for something to fill her hands.

“Kara,” Alex whispers, and her lips brush against blonde hair, her arms accepting the trembling body and leaping shoulders that crash into her own. “Just breathe for a second, for me.”

She threads her fingers through Kara’s hair and runs her touch slowly through the loose waves, as her other hand sprawls across Kara’s back and holds her close.

“I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re going to be okay.”

Kara hiccups and fights with air. It isn’t until Alex leans back and slips her arms around Kara’s shoulder, linking onto her watery blue eyes, that Kara lets go of the breath coiled inside her.

“It’s like you’re dying, Alex,” Kara murmurs, drops her head and tries to study the hem of her jeans through the blurriness clouding her eyes.

“But I’m not,” Alex promises. She reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind Kara’s ear.

“But you’re _leaving_ , and—and you promised that you wouldn’t.” Her voice cracks and she retracts her hand from Alex’s, shoving at the tears on her cheeks before bringing the loose fist against her lips and tilting to make herself small.

“I’m doing this so you can still be you,” Alex says and the weight of a sob throbs in her throat. “So you can be Kara Danvers.”

Kara shakes her head, sending hair bouncing across her face and clinging to her damp cheeks. She swipes it away and looks at her sister, reclaims the hand she let go. “I’m Kara Zor-El… The Danvers—the _best_ parts about me on this planet—that’s all from you. I’m sorry,” Kara whispers. “I know you don’t want this either—I know it’s just as hard for you, I just—How could I ever be a Danvers without you?”

“I’ll still be here,” Alex tries to reassure, but her words ride on tears and after a beat of taut silence they’re collapsing into each other and crying.

“It’s like I’m losing my whole world again,” Kara says and holds Alex tight. “But it’s worse this time, because I won’t have a sister. I won’t have _you_ , waiting for me on the other side of the Phantom Zone and the nightmares and all the times I couldn’t breathe.”

“I’ll always be there for you, Kara, no matter what the form. No memories, or lack thereof, are going to change the fact that I love you with everything I have and that I would do anything— _anything—_ to keep you safe, even when it breaks my heart.”

Kara brushes at Alex’s tears with her thumb. “I love you, Alex.”

Alex captures Kara’s hand on her cheek and squeezes it. “I love you, too, Kara. I wish there were a better way.”

Kara straightens. “We could kill her and hide the body?”

A laugh, watery and full of air, flees from Alex’s lungs. “We could. But we shouldn’t.”

“I know.” Kara deflates with a sigh, slumping against Alex, their backs lean against the wall while their shoulders press together. “I could fly her to the fortress of solitude or—or drop her off in Antarctica? Or J’onn could wipe her memory way back and we could leave her on some island in the middle of the ocean where people have barely even heard of Supergirl? Or—”

“Kara.” Alex settles a hand above Kara’s knee and gives a light squeeze. “Maybe there’s a way to make this reversible, and we can undo it all when you’re safe again and Colonel Haley, but there are no guarantees that that’ll even happen and we have to go through with this, I would _never_ forgive myself if something happened to you.”

Kara’s lip quivers as she keeps her gaze locked on Alex. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Alex. Even if I hate your morals and logic right now.”

Alex pulls a sad smile across her lips before sighing and interlacing their hands.

“I’ll be there, when it happens.” Kara bites her lip, leaving an indent against the soft pink. “If you want me too, I’ll be there. I’ll hold your hand the whole time.”

Alex shakes her head, the weight of tears seeping back into her words. “If I’m looking at you, I won’t ever be able to tell J’onn to do it.”

“Are you sure?” Kara examines her through watery eyes.

Alex nods. “But, Kara? You’re going to need someone to get through this. Someone who’s shown you again and again that she’s on your side, no matter what.”

“Do you…” Kara furrows her brow, lifting her head from Alex’s shoulder. “Are you talking about Lena?”

Alex nods.

“But she doesn’t know?”

“I wouldn’t be so sure that she hasn’t put the pieces together, Kar, that girl’s basically got degrees into double digits. Just make sure she stays far from the DEO.”

Kara lets a laugh slip through the lump in her throat. “What if she doesn’t know and telling her ruins everything?”

Alex shakes her head. “I don’t think it will. She’s your best friend. She loves you too much.”

“And what if I lose both of you?” Kara’s voice cracks.

“Never, Kara.” Alex cups her hands around Kara’s warm, damp cheeks. “You are never losing me.”

“Can we wait one more minute before you go in?” Kara asks, her heart a weight in her chest too heavy for even Supergirl to lift. “I just need to hug you and remember as much as I can, it might not be like this again.”

“Of course,” Alex whispers and pulls Kara close, their tears running together. In just a few moments this memory won’t exist. She holds on tight and doesn’t know how she’ll ever let go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara tells Lena the truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up, there's no Danvers sisters in this chapter, but there will be in the next one!! Stay tuned ;)

Kara circles the globe twice before the sucking of breath seeps into her lungs and clutches her chest in its grasps. She swerves her path toward one of the safest places she knows now, in National City, and sputters forward onto L-Corp’s balcony. The solidity of the pavement beneath her buckling elbows jolts a lightning bolt of reality inside her.

If she’s going to do this, she needs to do it the right way.

She shreds her supersuit, and with it, any falsities that would betray the crumbling inside her, at the thought of Alex, just blocks away, suddenly unaware of her truth. Of the truth they’d carried together since she stumbled on this planet as a little girl, carrying the weight of a world in her broken heart.

The cape disappears and the tears flood back, amassing at her waterline where she swipes them away while crossing in front of Jess.

There’s a shuffling of papers and the sound of them being aligned against the desk, before Jess looks up to see Kara passing through, eyes trained on the door to Lena’s office. “Mrs. Danvers, are you all right?”

“Is she in there?” Kara asks, voice raspy and grating against the stillness of the hall as the building empties of its usual business, settling into a subdued pace as evening ebbs into night. Her gaze doesn’t drift from the door and what lies behind it. Her x-ray vision could tell her Lena’s at her desk, amongst immaculate stacks of files, but her powers have cost her people she loves, again, and the thought of using them makes something clench in her chest, more painful with each passing moment.

Jess nods. “She finished up her last meeting of the day forty-five minutes ago. I believe she’s just finalizing some notes now.”

“Thanks.” Kara’s eyes flicker over to her for a moment before drifting back to the door. A deep breath rattles her lungs as she reaches out and twists her fingers around the handle. “Have a good night, Jess.”

“You as well,” Jess replies and returns her attention to the computer on her desk.

The door feels heavier than any steel Kara’s lifted, as she pulls it open and lets it fall closed behind her.

“Kara,” Lena looks up from her work with a smile. “What a lovely surprise, what are you doing here? I didn’t accidentally work through dinner plans or anything, did I?”

Kara shakes her head, drops her tangled fingers from in front of her chest and lets them dangle at her side, rubbing her palms against her jeans. “Lena,” she inhales and exhales, and the weight of so many lost worlds bundles on her breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Those words charge the air, and anticipation rises like steam. Suffocating; spreading.

Lena sets down her pen. The corners of pages flutter at the disturbance.

Kara’s fingers tremble around the edge of her glasses and it takes three tries to pull them from her face and another set of seconds that run too long to expose the House of El’s crest.

“I’m Supergirl.”

Regret slams into her chest like she’s losing a fist fight. Her face falls and silent tears surge forward. She’s going to lose someone else. The panic clangs inside her like trapped electricity.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpers. “I’m so sorry, Lena. I wanted to tell you—I—” Oxygen jumbles in her lungs and her breath stutters. No words are significant to convey the guilt inside her.

Lena’s heart drops. “I didn’t want to believe it,” she whispers and shakes her head slow. “The evidence was piling up, but I didn’t want it to be right.” She squeezes her eyes shut, too hard, too fast. When she opens them, there’s moisture at the edges, and black dots cloud her vision before disintegrating. “I didn’t want it to be true, that you’d truly been lying to me for _this_ long. After _everything.”_

“I was terrified, of hurting you,” Kara explains, crushing her fingers in her hand. Shame flames through her. “But I understand that in keeping a secret, I only caused more harm. My powers, my identity, me—I have cost so much to the people closest to me, _especially_ to the people closest to me. Even from the very start, when Jerimiah gave up everything to protect me. He went away, we thought he’d died, and it was worse, maybe, somehow; and it never gets better, and Alex just had to have her memory wiped,” Kara’s breath wheezes in and out of her lungs, her eyes clench shut. Pods and space debris and fire and Alex spark behind her eyelids. The effect is dizzying. “Just—just to protect me, and now there’s nothing, Lena, there’s nothing—there’s nothing, there’s nothing,” she repeats, squeezing her hands to fists, knuckles burning white. “—there’s no one. There’s nothing.”

Her shoulders jump as if on a string and the room spins as if on an axis. And a hand, warm and soft, slips over her shoulder; and a thumb, with its human-featherlight touch, grazes the top of her supersuit, tracing the ridge between her shirt and the synthetic material that lies beneath—navy and regal and despised by its bearer.

“There is never nothing, Kara,” Lena whispers and allows her hand to graze against Kara’s tightly wound fist. It’s an invitation and Kara clings like it’s water that will extinguish the fire in her lungs, squeezing so hard it almost hurts, but Lena only trails her thumb over Kara’s knuckle and squeezes back. “What happened to Alex?”

“But I lied to you.” Kara murmurs and uses her free hand to wipe at her cheeks. She turns her gaze up to Lena.

“And it stings like I can’t describe,” Lena admits, “But I have experience with having to give up on people I love over lies and deceit, and I can’t go through that again, not with you.” Her voice cracks and Kara’s eyes stay trained on Lena’s face as it remains painfully measured despite the mist in her eyes. “So I’m choosing to believe.” She looks at Kara. “For both of us, I’m choosing to believe that everything else was true—is _still_ true.”

“It is.” Kara nods so hard it makes her dizzy and her blonde waves, mused and wind-tangled, bounce, and water drips from her cheeks.

She wobbles on her feet and Lena steadies her and even when Kara is standing upright, Lena doesn’t let go.

“Thank you,” Kara says into Lena’s shoulder, and though her words are a whisper, they’re heavier than anything Lena’s heard all night. “For everything,” she breathes, “and I’m sorry, Lena, I swear, I’m so—”

“Shh,” Lena gently murmurs and lets her hand rub Kara’s back as she feels the tears begin to stream from Kara’s cheeks again. “Not now. Tell me about Alex, so we can fix this.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible.” Kara hiccups, shaking her head and smearing tears across her warm cheeks.

“At least give me a chance.”

So Kara speaks and Lena listens, cataloging each piece of information and holding Kara as she cries, even as Lena’s own heart sits fractured in her chest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara tries to sort through their new sister dynamic. It isn't easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got so much Danvers sisters in this one, I hope you guys like it! Big thanks to the guest on ff.net who prompted the last part of this chapter.

She misses Kara’s favorite movie at game night, and she fights with Supergirl at the crime scene. And this person in front of Kara, she looks like Alex and she sounds like her, but the words don’t fit the voice and the hugs are too soft and the shared glances don’t hold two worlds of history, and when she says “I’ll see you, tomorrow” it sounds like goodbye instead of a promise.

“Hey,” Alex’s voice draws Kara’s attention. “Is everything okay?”

Alex lingers in the doorway, hours after J’onn has left and the sun’s set and the apartment is heavy with shadows and sounds Kara’s never noticed before.

“Hmm?” Kara’s gaze flickers from the floor back up to Alex. “Oh, yeah, yeah everything is fine.” She slinks an arm around her waist, weight pressed onto the back of her heel.

“You’re not good at lying to me,” Alex says, a teasing smile slips across her cheeks and Kara’s heart clatters in her chest, all sharp edges and heavy. “I know something’s wrong, your face,” she waves her hand in the air, “it’s all scrunchy, like you have a… a…” She purses her lips, squinting.

“A crinkle?” Kara fills in the blank with a whisper, and all this filling is emptying her on the inside.

“Yes, exactly!” Alex exclaims and presses up on her tiptoes, tapping the space between Kara’s brows. “So what’s wrong?” She asks, wearing a soft smile, as she settles back onto flat feet, like they’re in the middle of inside joke.

But it’s all one-sided and everything between them is off-kilter and Kara can’t help the way her face falls, watery eyes looking everywhere but Alex.

“Hey,” Alex’s voice softens, and she reaches her hand out to Kara’s shoulder. “I’m serious, what’s up?”

Kara just shakes her head. “I can’t—”

“What does that even mean, Kara?” Alex blows out a breath and one arm settles on her hip while the other raises in the air, accompanying her words. The world feels tilted out of axis. This feeling that something’s been off, accumulating over the past few days, pinnacles here with Kara just an arms length in front of her but feeling galaxies away.

“I, nothing, I—”

“You’ve been acting _weird_ lately and at first, I thought it was just me overthinking or something, but now you’re—you’re keeping secrets from me, I mean, we don’t do that? That’s not us.”

“I wish I—” Kara rings her hands together and holds them close to her chest where her heart beats so loud it hurts. “It’s not that simple,” Kara whispers, her head shaking and her eyes filling with tears that won’t fall.

“Really?” Alex’s foot taps against the ground. “Then explain it to me.”

“I can’t!” Kara shouts, cheeks blazing red and the room too hot.

Alex rolls her eyes and pushes around Kara. Alex’s rough touch burns against Kara’s impenetrable skin. “Don’t bother calling until you want to start acting like the sister I know,” Alex jabs and yanks the door closed behind her.

The frame rattles and joins with the stomp of Alex’s retreating feet down the hall, the cacophony clattering in Kara’s skull and making her head ache. She moves, backing up until her back slams against the closed door. Her phone rings and she glances at the caller ID, seeing Lena’s name and tossing the device to the side. There’s only one person in the world she wants to talk to right now.

Giving in to her shaky legs, Kara sinks to the floor. Her phone, still vibrating across the room, is miles away now. The ground is cool beneath her palms and a shudder rips through her shoulders. She lets her head fall and the sobs break forward.

/

“It’s never going to be the same,” Kara says. Her stride matches Lena’s as they walk through CatCo, side by side. In Kara’s arms, sits a stack of takeout in a brown bag from their favorite restaurant down the street. They’d slipped away to spend a few moments catching up while they made the trip, returning as the building began emptying of its last few nine-to-five employees who’d stayed behind extra to finish articles and meet deadlines. “We’ve barely talked since then. Everything just feels different.”

Lena’s head tilts to the side, brows scrunched just slightly like they always are when she’s trying to work something out. After a few moments, she lets out a sigh. “I think,” she begins. “That’s just how it’s going to be for a while, and I can’t imagine how painful it is, Kara. But, once this _witch-hunt_ for your identity settles down, I’m going to figure out a way to restore her memories. I’ll work with J’onn, we’ll get Winn back, whatever it takes to find a solution. We will make this okay.”

Kara bites her lip, her full attention on Lena. “You really think so?”

Lena opens her office door for Kara, giving her shoulder a squeeze as she passes. “I do.”

“Thank you,” Kara says as she begins setting out the food on the coffee table. “For everything. I really don’t know how I would be getting through any of this without you.”

Lena smiles at Kara, her hands in the takeout bag and fumbling with plastic cutlery and paper napkins. “What are friends for?”

Just as Kara’s about to return the smile, her facial features twist in concentration. She turns toward the long windows, head tilted and eyes squinting. “Ugh,” she sighs. “I’ve got to go.”

“Supergirl?”

Kara nods and apologizes but Lena shakes her head and waves it off. “Duty calls, I understand. I’ll save the potstickers for when you get back, sound good?”

“Absolutely. See you soon.” And with that, she slips out to the balcony and takes off.

/

With the third robber removed from the bank and apprehended, Kara touches back down to Earth, feet pressing against the street.

“What are you even doing here, Supergirl?” Alex emerges from around the corner, bathed in the red and blue of police lights. “It was made abundantly clear the last time we interacted, that you are not to have any part in DEO activity.”

Kara tosses her hands down to her side. “I heard people yelling, I can’t just turn that off, Alex!”

“Alex?” She questions and her voice is low, a growl, as she steps into Kara’s space, hands on her hips. Kara may be taller in stature, but she feels herself shrinking. “I thought I told you—” The disapproval on her face is wiped clean in a moment and Kara’s head tilts in confusion as Alex squints. The fury flaming through Alex goes rigid. “Watch out.”

“What?”

A solid weight crashes into her side, the surprise sends her tumbling into the ground. A body crashes into hers, a mass of brown hair in her face and those sirens blaring in the night. A roar of footsteps thunders from the cars, swerves around them and accumulates around a figure cloaked in darkness, visible just over the place Kara’s shoulder had been mere seconds earlier.

Her brows crinkle, and she realizes the weight against her is Alex.

“What the hell?”

Kara pushes Alex off her, seething as hurt and anger flare inside her. Heat flushes her cheeks and her hands ball into fists on their own accord as she shoves herself off the ground and stands, wobbling as she does so.

“Are you—are you okay?” Alex’s eyes peel open, then drop shut again, stuck in a cycle of parting just to fall closed.

“What?” Kara stumbles. “Am I—yeah, I’m fine? I—” The realization hits Kara like an icy fist in her chest. The screaming sirens turn to silence, the traffic halts, the moon stops its climb through the night sky.

“You’re bleeding.” Kara drops to her knees and feels the gravel bite into the skin between her skirt and boots. She doesn’t blink at the emerging droplets of crimson that rise from her torn skin. “Shit you’re _bleeding_. You were—you were shot. For—for…” Kara’s gaze sinks down toward a whirl of shallow breathing and the eyes that meet her are all Alex. Her Alex. Then they wink shut and the night crashes onto her shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry?


	4. Chapter 4

“You… you jumped in front, to...to save me,” Kara’s breath wheezes through the long spaces between her words.

“Yeah well, not successfully.”

Alex pushes off the ground, on her knees over Kara and spreading her hands across the crimson saturated suit. She spares a glance up at Supergirl’s face and Alex’s brows crinkle, she nearly pulls back. “What’re you—why are you _smiling?_ You just got shot.”

“Trust me, _I know.”_ Kara hisses as Alex presses down on her abdomen. “I can feel the kryptonite, too, I just---” she squeezes her eyes shut and gives a shake of her head. The gravel nips at the back of her skull and a wave of nausea rips through her as the kryptonite radiates through her system. “Never mind.”

“We need to get you out of here. If I take you to the DEO, Haley’ll be all over you. Is there somewhere you can go? Some place safe where I can patch you up? It won’t be the best, but if I work fast you should—you’ll be fine.” Alex shoves her hair from her face as she thinks, sticky with sweat, stomach turning as slick blood smudges across her temple.

Kara nods, perspiration dampening her own hairline and turning the blonde wisps dark.  A curl of wind sends shivers through her body. “Lena.”

“As in… Luthor?” Alex’s brows raise.

“Yes,” Kara says through clenched teeth, her eyes screwed shut and hands balled into fists.

“Okay, that I can do,” Alex replies and her voice softens as she starts to move Supergirl, a groan ripping from her lips as she stumbles to her feet, half dead-weight in Alex’s arms as she maneuvers them toward the closest DEO vehicle, letting the chaos unfolding behind her steal the attention of the agents on-scene.

She rests Kara against the dark, metal exterior, peering into the window to see if it’s unoccupied.

An agent cracks open the door and Alex flinches back, an agent she’s only worked with in groups, never personally or intimately. His alliances are unknown and an unexpected swirl of anxiety mounts in her chest. “I—”

He takes in her blood-caked hands and Supergirl. Wavering, doubled-over against the side of the van.

With a shake of his head, he cuts off her explanation and steps out. “I won’t say a word.” He moves aside and opens the backdoor beside Kara. “Just do your best to keep Supergirl safe. Let her know we’re still rooting for her, yeah?”

Alex gapes and she can only nod and wonder why there’s a lump in her throat.

/

“Lena, can you meet me at your apartment in fifteen minutes?” Alex asks through the phone, one hand cradling the device to her ear and the other gripping the steering wheel. She weaves between two cars in the thick city traffic, dodging a taxi and making a sharp right turn. Every few seconds her eyes flicker up to the rearview mirror and fight the glare of the evening sun. Each moment she settles her gaze on Supergirl, shallow breathing and eyes drooping closed, an arm holding her cape to her abdomen in a futile attempt to follow Alex’s instructions and stanch her own bleeding.

“May I inquire why?”

Lena’s voice, cool and smooth, snaps Alex’s gaze from the mirror to the road in front of her. A red light forces her into a screeching halt. Her breath expands heavy in her chest. “Because Supergirl is bleeding out in the backseat of a car I basically just stole from the DEO, Lena! Is that a good enough reason for you?!”

Lena blinks. Once, twice. She turns around to the TV playing the news behind her. Grainy video of a green glow and a figure from an anti-alien extremist group. Supergirl falling. The robbery playing out. It hits her at once.

“Shit.”

“ _Yeah_ shit! So, will you be there or not? Supergirl said your place was safe and I’m really running out of time.” Alex’s voice pitches upward.

Lena leaves her office, door swinging behind her. “I—yes, yes of course. I’ll meet you in the back, by the private elevator.”

The traffic light blinks green and Alex slams her foot into the gas. The van roars and buckles forward. In the backseat, a moan escapes Kara. Something in Alex’s chest keeps coiling tighter with every whimper and writhing movement. “We’ll be there in ten.”

/

Keeping the door open with one foot, Lena ushers the pair inside. A gust of wind slips into the frame as it thumps closed behind them, silencing the distant whirl of car horns and sirens; instead, the ten strides it takes to cross the hall and enter the elevator are saturated in wheezing breaths and Kara’s feet clomping against the tile as her knees tremble and the kryptonite spreads.

In the elevator, Alex guides Kara’s frame against the side, dispersing some of her weight from the agent’s arms. Under the rail, Lena’s hand brushes the back of Kara’s and, with a sigh of relief that penetrates the air, Kara slips her fingers between Lena’s, clinging as much as her plummeting strength will allow, because she can’t reach for Alex like that. Not when Alex doesn’t know the girl beneath the cape is her sister.

“I’ve got you.” Lena whispers.

Her voice is soft and low, and Kara tries to lift her head to it, but the pull of gravity is too heavy and she finds herself looking at the ground, confronting the blood oozing from her fingers and dripping down her leg. The same trail of blood that sends her trembling back as they enter Lena’s loft and it splatters crimson on the pristine white tile of her foyer.

Kara halts, wavering as her knees lock. “Lena, your— I’m—”

She follows Kara’s gaze down to the blood smearing on the floor, bites her lip at the way Kara’s boot slips across it.

“Don’t worry about it,” she dismisses and steadies Kara’s frame with a hand on her shoulder. Lena glances across the room, where Alex is bent over the coffee table, rifling through the standard DEO first aid kit she grabbed from the car. 

They cover the couch with plush towels and Kara collapses on top of it with thinning breath and paling skin.

Watching as Alex pulls tweezers from the bag, Lena keeps one hand threaded in Kara’s damp hair, thumb caressing her temple beneath a sheen of sweat. Under Lena’s fingertips, she can feel the muscles of Kara’s face pulled taut—eyes squeezed shut and lips pressed into a grimace. “You’ll be okay,” Lena whispers, kneeling so their faces are close. “We’re both right here with you and we aren’t going to let anything bad happen.”

Even though Kara’s face remains frozen in place, she nods, blonde hair musing beneath her head.

“Do you have everything you need?” Lena asks, looking up at Alex.

She nods. “I think as long as I get the kryptonite out, she should be able to heal if we can get the proper amount of light.”

Lena casts a glance out the window, where twilight sinks into the crevices of the city. “There’s no time. The sun will be completely gone in half an hour. We need…”

“Sunlamps,” Alex answers, unsure of why all these specific details about Supergirl bubble inside her. Why she knows Supergirl would complain about the sunlamps if she could speak without a sob filling its place; why she knows Supergirl prefers sunlight and closing her eyes and sprawling across cushioned lawn chairs on balconies with an open book balanced on her chest and her palms facing the sky. Why the knowledge feels as warm and sacred and tangible as a memory.

“I have some. At L-Corp,” Lena says, stepping toward the door. “I’ll have Jess rush them here. I’ll meet her halfway. Will you two be all right?”

The Danvers sisters nod in sync and Lena’s heart clenches. Standing over Kara, she brushes wisps of blonde hair off Kara’s heated skin. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Kara nods, eyes still screwed shut as Lena bids Alex goodbye and leaves.

Alex swallows hard. For some reason, her always-steady hand trembles around the tweezers “Supergirl,” she whispers. “This is going to hurt, but I’m going to go as fast as I can, okay? I’m going to take care of you.”

A smile spreads across Kara’s blotchy cheeks, interrupts the tear tracks, and reaches up toward her eyes.

“I know.” Her hoarse voice barely breaks through her heavy breathing. “I trust you.”

Her hand fumbles for Alex’s, fingers colliding. They squeeze each other tight; back and forth, a conversation through touch, dips and ridges that are so familiar Alex feels it inside her like a heartbeat.

As she extracts the glowing bullet from mangled skin, Alex begins to place why she might be crying, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter to go


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this story :)

With the sunlamps teetering in the crook of her elbow, Lena staggers through the door and knocks it closed with her heel. She disposes of the two lamps in the living room, connecting the wires to the closest outlet and turns out toward the balcony where Alex and Kara are sitting, Supergirl soaking up the last glimmers of sunlight before the whole city settles into the slower pace of night.

Lena taps her knuckle lightly against the frame and despite the softness of the sound, Alex jumps.

“Oh hey,” she breathes out as her shoulders settle. She takes her eyes off Kara to look at Lena.

“How did it go? Is she okay?” Lena asks and steps onto the balcony.

Alex nods, face in shadow as she looks back toward Kara. “I was able to extract the bullet and she started healing a bit as soon as I had it discarded…”

“But?” Lena questions, taking the hint from Alex’s far away gaze and trailing words that there’s something more she wants to say.

Alex shakes her head with a sigh. “It’s nothing,” she says as she pushes herself out of the chair. “Let’s get her under the sunlamps, we’ve already waited longer than we should have.”

“Okay,” Lena agrees.

They rouse Kara from sleep and settle her on the couch closest to the balcony because even though healing started with the removal of the kryptonite, her words still slur nonsense as she walks between them, an arm from each woman supporting a side because her frame still wavers and each step still draws a groan or a wheeze or a flinch.

Her eyes drop shut the moment she settles, her lips pinched tight and her hand ghosting over the space the bullet had been. A fluttery rattle of breath escapes her and Alex’s need to take away her pain stabs inside her. Her boots squeak as she turns to power up the sunlamps and help Supergirl, but before she can take a step, a hand, limp and clammy and soft, wraps around her wrist.

“Alex,” Supergirl whispers.

And Lena holds her breath and Alex freezes, because the voice holds so much more than Supergirl’s declarative timbre, the stripped-down sincerity bleeding out like a confession or a cry. It doesn’t sound like Supergirl, it sounds like Kara when she’s scared or hurt or missing home.

Alex’s breath tangles in her throat.

“Hey,” Alex whispers back, she can’t stop her fingers from drifting toward Supergirl’s cheek, catching a tear before it falls.

“I’m sorry, I—” Supergirl shakes her head and retracts the hand she’d wrapped around Alex’s wrist. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” Alex comforts softly, dropping to her knees so she’s eye level with Supergirl and looking into eyes that are so achingly familiar her heart nearly stops. She sees them with Midvale as the backdrop, behind a desk at CatCo, up in the sky with stars surrounding them. Alex rubs her head.

“I just want to thank you,” Kara says through a cough. Her heart aches with the desire for a hug from Alex in that moment, to soothe her throbbing head and burning skin and just forget. “For everything.”

A beat passes and Alex can’t speak through the lump in her throat and the memories mounting in her head, the pulsating heartbeat between her ribs; and then, she leans forward and draws Kara into an embrace. It’s all awkward angles and elbows against the back of the couch, but the sisters unravel into the hug like they’re coming home.

There’s so much history, like static between them, that when Kara falls asleep and Alex vacates her cross-legged post on the floor beside the couch, she walks straight to the kitchen where Lena’s putting away cleaning supplies. Alex joins her behind the counter, in a position that keeps Kara visible, and takes in a deep breath. She leans against the granite, propped up on both arms.

The silence quivers between them, the room swelling only with the sound of Kara’s breathing. A gust of air swirls through the open window and Alex finds herself shivering as she watches moonlight glimmer across the room and toss shadows across Supergirl’s face.

“There’s something I’m missing, isn’t there?”

Alex turns to face Lena.

Lena opens her mouth to answer then stops. She shifts her weight and watches Alex, it’s not her place to break this news and the conflict plays across her face.

Alex shakes her head. “You don’t have to say it, Lena,” Alex exhales something heavy in her chest and her face falls and suddenly there are tears gathering at her waterline. She waves a hand in the direction of the couch. “She’s Kara. I should have known,” Alex whispers. “How could I not know? I have… I have all these memories, I…” She covers her mouth to muffle the strain of sobs that aches to break through.

“It’s not that simple,” Lena says.

Alex nearly whimpers, teary eyes peeking out from beneath her fingers. She takes a long, deep breath and swipes at her cheeks. “What do you mean?”

“Have a seat.” Lena tilts her head toward the tall chairs on the opposite side of the counter and Alex follows, sitting beside her as Lena lets the truth come out.

/

When Kara wakes, the sharp pain in her abdomen has receded to a dull throb. Over the blanket draped across her lap, two arms wrap around her, their touch soft and familiar. She exhales as the remnants of sleep unravel around her.

“Why’re you hugging me?” Kara mumbles and a loose fist raises to rub her eyes. “Alex?”

She peeks between her fingers, squinting in the dim light.

“Sorry, Kara,” Alex pulls back but keeps a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”

A crease forms between Kara’s brows and her eyes dart between her super suit and Alex, and as the realization washes over her, she shoots upright. “How do you… I…”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Alex soothes her rapid breathing with a single squeeze on her shoulder, a brush of her thumb. “It’s okay.”

“But you…” Her brows crunch together. “I don’t understand.”

“I knew something was wrong, all this evidence was piling up in my head… All these memories I couldn’t explain or fit together and all of a sudden I just  _knew_ it was you. I asked Lena about it, she explained what happened and then it all came back.” Alex takes her hand. “Kara I am so so sorry.”

Kara’s eyes water and her lips flutter up into a smile and she bolts into Alex’s arms, wiggling her way into a snug embrace. “It had to be done and you were so brave about the whole thing. I just missed you so much.” She deflates with the words and Alex runs a hand over Kara’s back.

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

Alex hugs her tight and Kara doesn’t ever want her to let go.


End file.
